Articles

Seizing the Moment

Mike Ciarochi-Uniontown Herald-Standard

December 6, 2009

To call Steelers' defensive end Brett Keisel an overachiever would damn
him with faint praise.

Don't misunderstand, though. Keisel has achieved
quite a bit in his first seven seasons of professonal football and, midway
through his eighth-all with the Pittsburgh Steelers-there are no indications
he will be slowing down any time soon.

The problem with calling Keisel
an overachiever is that it suggests he achieved more than was rightfully his,
more than he had worked his tail off in order to achieve. Make no mistake,
Keisel has put in the time and effort required to achieve the pair of Super
Bowl rings that are a part of his jewelry collection.

"It is amazing
really," Keisel said about a career that began as a seventh-round draft pick
by the Steelers in 2002. "It's been awesome because I had to work my way up
to this point. I had an opportunity on special teams my rookie year. I
didn't even dress for half the season, until someone went down with an
injury. That's what this league is all about: getting an opportunity and
seizing it."

Keisel always had the talent to succeed in the NFL, but he had to
persevere down a long road in order to make it happen. He seized the first
opportunity, as he mentioned previously, on special teams during his rookie
season. Subsequent shoulder surgery shelved him in his second season, and he
spent all of 2003 on the team's Reserve Injured list.

After that
experience, Keisel's days on the inactive list were over, except for injury-
related scratches in 2005 and 2008 (ironically, the team's two Superbowl
seasons during his tenure). Breaking into the starting lineup was his next
goal, but he served as an able-bodied backup in 2005, when he recorded his
first sacks as a pro. Keisel jumped into the starting lineup in 2006 and has
been the team's starting right defensive end ever since.

Any Steelers
fan knows the 2005 season was special in its own right, because the team won
its last four games to make the playoffs and won three AFC playoff games on
the way to a Superbowl XL victory over Seattle in Detroit.

Along the
way was an AFC Championship game win in Denver, and Keisel played a big part
in securing that win with a pair of sacks, a forced fumble and four
tackles.

Fast forward to Nov. 9 of this year and the Steelers' trip to
Denver to take on the Broncos. Keisel, who hails from Greybull, Wyo., had
two sacks to make a significant contribution to the Steelers 28-10 win.

Is there something special to him about playing in
Denver?

"Yeah, definitely," he said. "That's the closest we get to my
home state of Wyoming. There's always a Keisel group there to support me. It
just adds extra motivation when I know my wife is there and my mom and dad
and brothers and sisters and their kids are there watching, so I want to put
on a good show for them."

Part of that show was a salute for the military, which also has a special
place in Keisel's heart.

"I have a lot of respect for our armed
forces," Keisel said. "My family, my dad and his brothers and my mom's
brothers have all been a part of the military in one form or another. The
military has always been a part of my life. I have a lot of respect for the
men and women who are out there protecting our rights."

Steelers' nose
tackle Chris Hoke knows all about Keisel and his affinity for playing well
in that part of the country. Hoke was Keisel's teammate at Brigham Young
before Hoke joined the Steelers a year before Keisel arrived.

"I don't
have any wild stories," Hoke said. "He was a guy you could always depend on.
He always seemed to make the big play when you needed it in college, and
he's doing the same thing here in the NFL. He's a very friendly guy, but you
can tick him off in a heartbeat. He has a short temper and you see that on
the football field at times."

"I've got a switch in me, that's for
sure," Keisel said. "I think I try to keep it holstered as much as possible
when I'm not playing. When we get out there and compete, I switch into a
different cat, I think."

Hoke made the team as a free agent in 2001
and was estatic when the Steelers selected Keisel in the 2002 draft.

"I was very excited when we drafted him," Hoke said. "I called him right away. We
hung out a lot when he first got here. We'd go to dinner, just talk a lot
about what's going on in the NFL because I was just in my second year. It
was great to have a guy here you have history with. It's kind of hard when
you first get to the NFL, because you don't really know people, you don't
know what relationships are, but to have a guy here you already knew from
collge was a big help."

Keisel was considered the best high school
athlete in Wyoming, where he starred in football, basketball and track. He
was an All-Wyoming tight end/linebacker at Greybull High School and went to
Brigham Young. Along the way, he transferred to Snow College, but returned
to BYU.

Keisel thinks the move may have cost him on draft day. Not the move to
junior college, but the move he made while in junior college from tight end
to defensive end.

"I think the biggest thing was I went to BYU to play
tight end," Keisel said when asked about lasting until the seventh round of
the 2002 draft. "Basically, it was a big reason why I chose to go there.
Halfway through, I ran into some problems and I had to go to a junior
college, Snow College, for one semester.

"When I went down there, they switched me from offense to defense. That
was the first time I had switched since high school. That was like the
greatest thing that ever happened to me. I started playing defensive end and
played pretty good down there. Then I came back and finished two years at
BYU."

"I had a solid year my junior year at BYU, but my senior year I was
nicked up a little bit, had a lot of injuries. Plus, we had a lot of great players
who were first-and second-round draft picks who I think got a lot of the
attention. It was the biggest blessing in disguise, really to slip to the
seventh round and come here and have an opportunity to win championships.
"

Keisel likely will settle back in Wyoming when he retires from
football, but likens his second home in Pittsburgh to life in
Wyoming.

"It's not that different from here," he said. "People are
hard working, down-to-earth people. You don't have to have a lot of things
or be that flashy, just go about your life and live happily. I think that's
why it's been fairly easy for me to come here and be able to relate to a lot
of these bring-your-lunch-pail-to work type of people around here."

Keisel credits a lot of hard-working down-to-earth people in the
Steelers' locker room over the years with helping him to make him the player
he is today.

"Obviously, around here, you have great leadership," Keisel said. "Ever
since I was a young kid coming into this league, I was able to look up to
and work with guys like Aaron Smith, Kimo von Oelhoffen, Casey Hampton and
Coach John Mitch (Assistant Head Coach John Mitchell) and Chris Hoke. I mean
these guys have done nothing but pull me under their wings and help me with
the little things that are going to help me on the field. To be able to go
out and compete with these guys on Sundays is an absolute joy for me. My
daddy taught me since I was young that things are never going to be easy,
but you can go out and get what you want when you work for it. That's just
how I always approached things."

"I really love being a player for the
Pittsburgh Steelers. It's kind of something I try to embody in myself and in
my teammates. It's a pleasure to work for this organization, to be a part of
something that is great. A lot of us here are going to be two-time championions for the
rest of our lives. We're hoping for more of that, but you don't get this
type of atmosphere everywhere in this league. It really is a blessing to be
a part of it."

Keisel and his wife, Sarah, have a one-year-old son named Jacob Cassius
Keisel. Brett and Sarah were childhood sweethearts who named their child
after their great, great grandfathers. Having a child is another of the many
blessings Keisel has had bestowed upon him.

"It's kept me home a lot more," he said with a laugh."I don't know if
my wife likes that or not, but it's been great to have a son and have
someone who is really half of you. To be able to watch him progress and grow
has been the greatest blessing of my life. I thank God every day for that
little fella and for my wife, too. It's just been great to come here and
start my family here in Pittsburgh.

"I'm a huge Cassius Clay fan. He was the greatest of all time, in my
opinion. But that's not really the reason Jacob's middle name is Cassius.
Jacob is his first name and we got that from my great, great grandfather,
and Cassisus was my wife's great, great grandfather, so it worked out
well."

Like most other Steelers' players, Keisel is involved in charity work in
the Pittsburgh area. His work involves homeless children. More specifically,
it entails clothing and sheltering homeless children and helping to educate
them.

In October, Keisel offered assistance to a man with a similar
cause who was coming through Pittsburgh.

"His name is Tellman Knudson
and he's running across America barefoot to try to raise awareness and funds
for homelessness in our country," Keisel said. 'I've been involved here for
about six years now with homeless children's education. It was just my way
of going out and supporting him and his efforts and getting a little jog in
on my day off.""

Keisel hooked up with Knudson and jogged with him on his way through the
city. He also offered heavy support to an auction for homeless
children.

"A lot of these kids who are in these shelters, they really
had no say in the matter," Keisel said. "They are born into homelessness. To
be able to provide them backpacks and shoes and clothing and tools they need
to go to school and be social, it's something I take a lot of pride in."

Keisel and the Steelers agreed to a contract extension prior to this
season that will keep the defensive end in his No. 99 Steelers jersey
through the 2013 season. He said his affinity for Pittsburgh, the team and
its ownership made it easy for him to stay here.

"Yeah, because I love it here, I love my teammates," Keisel said. "I love
going out to work with these guys and I love the people upstairs. I've just
really enjoyed my time as a Pittsburgher. I just hope we can continue
it."

For the record, he wouldn't mind at all retiring as a member of the
Steelers.

"I hope so. I still feel like I have a lot of football left
in me, so I would like nothing more than to finish with that No. 99 and the
hypocycloids on my helmet."